


Day 1: Shock Value

by MindfulWrath



Series: The Week of Terrible Fiction [1]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Electrocution, Gen, Gore, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 02:15:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6311152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MindfulWrath/pseuds/MindfulWrath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which I asked myself the question: What would happen if Nilesy <em>succeeded</em> in killing Lalna?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 1: Shock Value

**Author's Note:**

> Although this uses Powered!verse characters, it is not currently Powered!canon.

He woke in pain.

Cold metal wires pressed into his back, patterned like a chain-link fence. His wrists and ankles had been lashed so tightly to the wires behind him that he couldn't feel his fingers or toes. Experimentally, he flexed his hands; the wire bindings around his wrists bit into his flesh, pinching down against the bone.

Nilesy opened his eyes. His world was vignetted, and he was, very briefly, thankful that whoever had done this had left him with his mask.

"Must've been one hell of a party," he mentioned. His voice was rusty with disuse.

"Hell," said Rythian, somewhere behind him. "Yes."

Nilesy's heart skipped a beat, and a nervous laugh bubbled through his lips. He tipped his head back, trying to see Rythian.

"If it's not too much trouble," Nilesy said, "d'you mind untying me? Only I can't feel my fingers, and I plan on needing them."

"Plans change," said Rythian. His voice was low and emotionless.

"Ahaah. Well. So they do. I wonder if—"

"For example," Rythian went on, "Lalna planned on living a full life."

Nilesy shut his mouth and swallowed. He let his head roll forward again; there was no sense in giving himself a crick in his neck before he died.

"How many people have you killed, Nilesy?" Rythian asked quietly.

"Fifteen," Nilesy answered.

"Including Lalna?"

He paused. "Sixteen," he amended.

There was a long, tense silence.

"Then you have sixteen hours to live," Rythian declared.

"Well that seems a bit backw—"

Searing pain erupted across Nilesy's body, striking into him everywhere the metal touched, burning his skin with the force of its fury. His body went stiff as a board, his jaw clacked shut so hard it cracked two of his teeth, and sheer _agony_ burned through him like lightning, filling up every last part of him until he felt he would come apart at the seams, that his muscles would rip themselves from his bones and his feeble flesh would combust.

It stopped as suddenly as it began, and Nilesy collapsed back onto his chain-link bed and, belatedly, started screaming.

The fire was still scratching at his nerves, leaving him twitching and gasping for breath, and he ached right down to his bones. He felt like he'd been hit by a bus.

Rythian leaned in and spoke next to his ear, his respirator hissing like a fire in the rain.

"You have," he said, "sixteen hours to live."

"You're a fucking monster," Nilesy told him. Another terrified giggle came curling up out of him. "And that—that means a lot, coming from me, ahahah."

There was a smell of burned cloth, burned flesh, burned hair. His skin was stinging sharply everywhere the metal touched him, a constant and brutal reminder of what was in store.

"Yes," said Rythian. "I _am_ a monster. More than you'll ever be."

"D'you want to know how the others died?" Nilesy inquired, his voice gone high and flighty with panic. "Because, ahahah, oh God, it wasn't _this_ bad."

"You can only die once," Rythian said. "You have a lot of repentance to get through first."

"If I say I'm very sorry will you—"

Another lightning-bolt of pain struck through him, silencing him by wiring his teeth together and knocking the air from his lungs. His body arched up off the fence, pulled taut by the terrible forces tearing through it. The wires cut into his wrists and ankles and sizzled as his blood flowed over them. Again, he fell back and screamed in honor of the pain that had just gone—short, desperate cries that tasted of blood.

"No," said Rythian.

 _"Fuck,"_ Nilesy hissed, squeezing his eyes shut. His heart was like a hummingbird's, frantic in its shallow beating, and his lungs had forgotten how to breathe. He started shivering violently, tremors born of stress and fear and the terrible electric pain.

"Tell me how they died," said Rythian. "One by one."

He laughed helplessly, tears crawling from his eyes. He yanked against his restraints, but they only bit deeper into his flesh, dripping blood down onto the floor.

"Oh, God," Nilesy said, still gasping for breath. "Well. The first one was my old—ahahah—manager, you know, at the first fucking shithole I worked in—"

The chain links rattled, and Nilesy cried out in abject terror, trying to wrench himself free before the pain hit. When it didn't come, he dissolved into helpless giggles, twisting his hands back and forth as though he could make the wires cut straight through to free him.

"Names," Rythian growled.

"Oh Jesus Christ," Nilesy whispered. "I don't fucking remember their goddamn _names."_

Rythian grabbed him by the throat and his arm, both simultaneously. Nilesy screamed again, thrashing, and to no avail. Rythian's grip tightened until it cut off Nilesy's air, and he was forced to hold still or have his trachea crushed.

"You have fifteen hours and fifty-five minutes," Rythian said. "You will remember."

Nilesy wheezed out another helpless laugh.

* * *

 

Something white-hot lanced into Zylus's brain, as bright and painful as staring straight into the sun. He hissed in a breath through his teeth and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, stopping in his tracks and swaying.

"Zy?" Panda said, his voice trembling.

"We're closhe," Zylus said. "Got to be."

"Close to _what?"_ Panda asked.

Zylus shook his head and blinked the stars from his eyes. "Let'sh jusht find him."

The abandoned bank of warehouses had never looked more uninviting. The whole place smelled of mildew and rot, and in the light of day it was a sorry and decrepit sight. A shadow flickered across the sun as Lomadia wheeled overhead, her eyes protected by dark glasses.

"Anything?" Zylus called up.

"No," she replied.

"Damn," Zylus muttered. "Panda, have another run through, shee if you don't shee anything new."

Panda nodded. His eyes were wide and he looked sickly, but he had stayed resolute thus far.

"Gotcha," he said. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes and was gone in a snap, leaving eddies of air behind him.

Zylus continued on between the warehouses, eyes peeled, ears pricked. It had been twelve hours since Nilesy had gone missing, and he hadn't slept a wink in over twenty-four. All three of them were worn thin, and it was only out of desperation that they had come to their habitual base of operations, hoping against hope that just _maybe_ Nilesy had failed to come home of his own accord.

Suddenly, Lomadia dropped from the sky, and Zylus heard a distant _crack_ of a door being kicked in. He broke into a sprint, making the best line he could towards where Lomadia had landed. He found the warehouse two rows over, and was panting by the time he arrived. Panda skidded up next to him, vibrating with tension. They hurried inside, nearly cannoning into Lomadia's back. She stood with her wings outstretched, her posture stiff.

Beyond her was what Zylus could only describe as a horror show.

There was a metal substrate propped up on four wooden blocks, likely taken from the box spring of an old mattress. A single bare copper wire connected it to the steel struts holding up the warehouse. Rythian was sitting next to it, one hand poised over the metal frame, his eyes hard and cold above the respirator. He looked like he hadn't slept in days.

Lying on the metal mesh, limp and dead-eyed, was Nilesy. He looked half-conscious at best, and he was twitching spasmodically. His wrists and ankles were torn to shreds, dripping blood down onto the concrete floor. His clothes had clearly caught fire at least once, and been doused with a powder extinguisher that sat ready by Rythian's calf. The parts of his skin in contact with the metal were blistered, in some places actually charred.

But at least Rythian had left the mask on.

With a wordless cry, Panda darted forward. Rythian let his fingers fall to touch the metal frame.

There was a terrible _sizzling_ noise, and Nilesy's body arched up off the mesh, jerking grotesquely as the electricity shook him in its jaws like a dog shaking a toy.

The white-hot pain struck Zylus in the head again, spillover from the vicious agony consuming Nilesy's mind. He cried out, dropping to his knees under the force of the blow, clapping his hands over his ears as though he could block out the sounds of the screams Nilesy couldn't utter.

Panda stopped so fast he skidded, nearly falling over in his haste.

Rythian took his hand back off the metal frame, and Nilesy dropped like a marionette with its strings cut, struggling for breath and whimpering quietly. Zylus's heart pounded in his ears while the aura of residual pain cast a haze around the edges of his vision.

"Oh, God," Panda whispered, and Zylus could feel _him_ hurting, too, a terrible ache in his chest and a sickness in his stomach. Lomadia's rage was like a fire at his back, roaring and clawing and consuming.

And Rythian sat like a black hole, terrible and cold and _empty._

"I'm not _done,"_ he said slowly, his words clipped.

"Yesh you damn well are," Zylus snarled, hauling himself back to his feet. Next to him, Lomadia was quivering with fury, her fists clenched at her sides, and the feeling of it was spilling over and carrying Zylus along on a wave.

Rythian turned his gaze, slowly, to Nilesy.

"Keep. Going," he ordered quietly.

Nilesy didn't respond, his breathing labored, his face slack. His hands were opening and closing slowly, making the blood flow from the wounds on his wrists.

Rythian let his hand fall onto the frame again.

Yet again the white-hot pain struck Zylus in the head like an icepick, and yet again he dropped to his knees, teeth clenched on a scream. Lomadia leapt for Rythian at the same time as Panda shot off towards him. Panda got there first, hitting Rythian at full speed and knocking him off his seat, sending him tumbling. Lomadia descended on him, snarling, wings beating furiously. Rythian cried out, just once, before she grabbed his body in her talons and began tearing him apart, ripping the flesh from his bones and spraying the floor with his blood. That pain, too, hit Zylus like a screwdriver to the temple, but he got up and staggered to Nilesy's side anyway.

"Panda," he called, breathless. Panda was staring fixedly at Lomadia, still methodically ruining Rythian's body, splintering bones and rending limbs. Zylus felt Rythian die, felt his mind go silent, like the sudden and panicky drop of missing a stair. Panda remained unmoving, and Lomadia continued to mangle Rythian's corpse, hissing through her teeth.

 _"Panda!"_ Zylus snapped. The other man turned suddenly, blinking, then darted back to Zylus. "Help me get him looshe."

Panda nodded. "O-okay. Gotcha."

With clumsy fingers, the two of them began untwisting the wires around Nilesy's wrists. He lay still, his breathing shallow and hitching, still twitching.

"Shit, they're like—they're stuck," Panda said, voice shaking. His fingers were slicked with Nilesy's blood, his eyes showing white all the way around.

"We'll cut him looshe," Zylus said. "You've got—"

"I'll try," said Panda, pulling out one of his many knives. He started working at the wires, his face set in concentration.

Zylus put a hand on Nilesy's face. His skin was clammy.

"Hey," he said. "We've got you. It'sh all right. It'sh over. We've got you."

Nilesy made a quiet, sputtering, gurgling noise, and a measure of blood bubbled out over his lips.

"Oh, _fuck,"_ Zylus said, his heart plunging into his boots. "Lom! Help ush get him looshe!"

Lomadia was there in an instant, her wings churning the air, her talons dripping blood onto the floor.

"How?" she asked, her mind buzzing with panic. "How? Zylus? How?"

"It's not _working,"_ Panda declared, throwing down the knife in frustration. He caught sight of the blood on Nilesy's lips and clapped both hands over his mouth. His thoughts whited out, going blank and hollow again.

Like an hourglass running out of sand, Nilesy's mind was going quiet, trickling grain-by-grain into total darkness.

"I don't know!" Zylus cried, his voice cracking. "There hash to be _shomething,_ we have to do _shomething_ , Chrisht's shake—"

Nilesy convulsed, and another gout of blood flowed over his lips. Zylus grabbed his face in both hands and spoke to him desperately, shaking him.

"Don't," he begged. "Don't, don't you dare, pleashe, God, Nileshy, hang on, we're going to get you out, I promishe, don't you _dare_ die!"

Panda was trying to get the wires loose again, prying at them desperately, weeping. Lomadia had frozen up, staring in mute horror as Nilesy wound down, his breath laced with blood, the light of his eyes slowly dimming.

 _"Nileshy!"_ Zylus screamed, his voice cracking.

The last grain of sand fell through, and Nilesy stilled, and was silent, inside and out.

Zylus folded, his body racked with pain, his heart shattered into a thousand glass splinters.

It took him an hour to find the words to tell the other two.


End file.
